


Undergraduate

by melissa_42



Category: Katekyou Hitman Reborn!
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-07
Updated: 2011-02-07
Packaged: 2017-10-19 04:19:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/196795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/melissa_42/pseuds/melissa_42
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Haha, it’s a pretty small campus, huh?”   When Yamamoto chuckled, Tsuna’s face lit up, and Gokudera knew he’d be seeing a lot of Yamamoto in the future. Damn it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Undergraduate

**sociology 101**

_thump thump thump_

The droning professor hadn’t realized it yet, but there was an earthquake rocking the classroom. When Gokudera set his pen down to massage the cramps from his hand, it skittered a painstaking trail across the stained, gouged wood of the table and into his lap. He glared at the epicenter—the boy to his left, who was jogging his leg up down, up down, doodling a herd of frolicking dogs and what appeared to be a misshapen samurai in place of notes on the loose leaf in front of him. His t-shirt was schools colors, white and scarlet, and proclaimed some bullshit about giving 110% for the team. Gokudera scoffed. Dumb jock, if 100% was the limit of your potential, it would be impossible to give even one more iota of effort.

“Cut it out,” he muttered under his breath just loud enough for the boy to hear him. The staccato beat stopped.

“Sorry,” the boy whispered sheepishly. “I’m trying to keep myself awake.” Instead of turning his attention back to the professor, however, he propped his chin on a tan, leanly muscled arm and stared at Gokudera unabashedly. Gokudera ignored him.

A minute later, the thumping resumed. Gokudera successfully fought down the urge to stab his pen into the boy’s thigh. It was going to be a long hour.

**librarian**

Rolling into the second week of the semester, the library was still slow enough that Gokudera could sit at the circulation desk reading old issues of _National Geographic_ for his entire shift without interruption. Most student didn't start getting serious about their papers and projects until a few weeks down the road, so it came as a surprise when a tall, scruffy boy with a dumb smile on his face shuffled up to him with ten books stacked precariously in his arms. Oh lord, it was that jock from his sociology class, the one that kept staring at him as if Gokudera’s body was the ticket to acing the final.

"Your ID?" Gokudera cocked an eyebrow and scowled when the boy laughed much too loudly.

"Got it right here," the boy replied with a genuine grin, holding out the card in such a way that Gokudera had to touch his fingers to retrieve it from his grasp.

The name on the ID read 'Takeshi Yamamoto' in all caps next to a little photo of the boy showing his teeth to the camera with bangs plastered to his forehead with what must have been sweat. Stupid name, stupid picture, stupid smile. Gokudera swiped the card and began scanning the books.

 _Handbook for social justice in counseling psychology  
The theory of island biogeography revisited  
The art of the sonnet  
Napoleon: a biography_

"What the hell are you writing about?" Gokudera asked, holding up a thick manual entitled _Design concepts in programming language_.

The boy--Takeshi or Yamamoto or whatever he was called--looked like a kid caught with a stolen candy bar. He scratched awkwardly at the back of his head and replied, "Umm, I'm actually still deciding on my topic." His eyes brightened. "Oh, could you help me figure out what to write about?"

"No."

"Wha--but aren't you a librarian? I thought librarian's were supposed to help--"

Gokudera rolled his eyes. "No, moron, I'm a student. This is just my work study job. Go ask the guy at the reference desk." He looked down at the book in his hands. "You're not actually writing a paper, are you?"

"Umm, no?"

"Then why the hell--" The reference librarian looked up from his desk and shushed Gokudera with a pointed glare that would have been even more irate if he’d realized how much Gokudera was hanging the code of ethical librarianship.

Yamamoto leaned against the desk and lowered his voice to a murmur meant only for Gokudera. "Would you believe that I just wanted an excuse to talk to you outside of class? You always run off as soon as the lecture is over."

With a scowl, Gokudera finished stamping the due date in the books and said, "What kind of moronic reason is that?"

"So, can I get your number?" Yamamoto asked with a hopeful lilt.

"Fuck off until you need to check out another book. These are due October 10th."

Yamamoto actually had the gall to laugh and say, "Ah, I actually don't need these anymore. I'll see you around, 'kay?" before waltzing empty handed out the door, leaving a seething Gokudera with flushed cheeks and a pile of books to reshelve.

**friend of a friend**

Much to Gokudera’s dismay, his childhood friend, Tsuna, befriended the stupid stalker jock. It came as a horrible shock when he dropped in on his friend one afternoon to find him and Yamamoto playing a first person shooter game in Tsuna’s room, both boys excitedly yelling at the television and panting as if they were the ones doing the running and jumping on screen. He didn’t have the heart to tell Tsuna that he already knew the idiot when they were enthusiastically introduced, but Yamamoto went and ruined the moment by mentioning that they had a class together.

“Haha, it’s a pretty small campus, huh?” When Yamamoto chuckled, Tsuna’s face lit up, and Gokudera knew he’d be seeing a lot of Yamamoto in the future. Damn it.

**care package**

_Should have known better_ , Gokudera mused, holding the bag of brownies by the corner. _I really should have._

The thing was, despite knowing what to expect, it was kind of nice receiving a care package, even if it _was_ from his sister. It made him feel…special…for lack of a better word. Remembered, if only by one family member. Well, at least he’d gotten a roll of coins for laundry out of the deal, even if it meant he now needed to find somewhere to throw away the baked goods. Like a nuclear disposal site.

With an outstretched arm and a grimace of disgust, Gokudera walked out of his room and smack into another student. When the bag went flying, Gokudera willed it not to open with every fiber of his being. Luckily the other boy managed to snatch it out of the air before anything too heinous could happen. As he was about to thank his savior, Gokudera realized it was Yamamoto. Fuck.

“Watch where you’re going,” Gokudera spat. Yamamoto ignored the animosity and held up his catch for better inspection.

“Cool, brownies!” He unzipped the bag. “Can I have one?”

Yamamoto may have been an annoying bastard who thought it was fun to annoy him during class, creep on him at work, and monopolize Tsuna’s time with his idiocy, but that didn’t mean he deserved to meet a gruesome end.

“No!” Gokudera all but screeched, ripping the bag from Yamamoto’s hands and nearly swooning from the fumes in the process. Then, for a brief, horrifying second, he pictured Yamamoto telling Tsuna about the exchange, and no, no, Tsuna couldn’t think he was selfish, Tsuna couldn’t think of him like that, he needed to salvage the situation--

“They, uh, have stuff in them,” Gokudera clarified. “You really wouldn’t want them.”

Yamamoto’s grin flashed from confusion to nervousness and back to smooth playfulness as he leaned in to whisper conspiratorially, “So they’re _special_ brownies?”

Oh god, now what was Tsuna going to think?! Better go with the truth.

“My sister’s a terrible cook. Like, the stuff from nightmares.”

That seemed to clear things up, as Yamamoto nodded in understanding. Though there was something unsettling in the way his grin grew softer, lips curving gently, not so tight against his teeth, like he was hearing Gokudera reveal something beyond his sister’s abysmal culinary skills. Like he saw potential where Gokudera saw disaster.

Just when Gokudera couldn’t stand the tension anymore, one of Yamamoto’s friends stuck his head out of a room down the hall.

“Are you going to the bathroom or what?” the boy shouted. “Let’s get this thing started!”

“Be right there,” Yamamoto called before addressing Gokudera. “We’re watching a few zombie flicks. You should come.”

It would have been so deceptively simple to forget all those rejected dates Yamamoto had asked him on the previous semester but that had slowly dissipated with time, so deceptively simple to start like this, to hang out away from Tsuna, even if it was with a group of people…

“Another time,” Yamamoto promised, and Gokudera didn’t say no.

 _Sly bastard, thinking he still has a chance_ , Gokudera thought minutes later, tossing the amorphous mass of chocolate and sugar in the dumpster outside. _Who does he think he’s kidding?_

**sexile**

_r u busy 2nite?_

Gokudera looked down at his half finished physics homework before texting back.

 _No, why?_

 _want 2 watch a movie? ur room?_

His fingers hovered over the keypad of his cell as he interpreted Yamamoto’s textspeak. The glaring absence of _with Tsuna_ drew his throat tight.

 _Whatever. Aren’t you in class?_

 _:’D_

Gokudera’s single was just large enough for a bed, a desk, and a dresser, but not much else. Since most of the trio’s time was spent in Yamamoto and Tsuna’s room right across the hall, there was no need for any seating besides the stained desk chair provided by the college. The best view of the television on the dresser, however, was from the bed.

As he popped the DVD into the player, Gokudera ignored the depressions left in the mattress by the weight of Yamamoto’s legs. He also ignored the way Yamamoto’s fingers curled against the navy, threadbare blankets when he sat beside him, as well as the sparkle in Yamamoto’s eyes when he glanced over at him and caught his gaze during the credits.

“So, kicked out of the room, huh?” Gokudera asked to fill their silence.

Yamamoto laughed as a light flush spread across the bridge of his nose. “No, but I figured I’d give them some alone time.”

A grunt of acknowledgement was all the response Gokudera provided before settling down to ignore Yamamoto with adamance for the next two hours. Yamamoto did not seem to get the message. With a soft puff of breath, so different from his normal raucous laughter, he brought one knee to his chest and wrapped his arms, clad in a school sweatshirt, around his leg before speaking.

“Can’t believe we’re almost halfway done with school already. Seems like we just started, huh?”

Yamamoto was a master of pointless conversations. Initially Gokudera had assumed that it was merely because he couldn’t stand awkward silences, or that he liked to hear himself speak, but after months of careful observation, he had come to the conclusion that Yamamoto liked to hear _other_ people talk. It frustrated Gokudera because try as he might, the flaws he had initially seen in the boy’s character were slowly slipping away, not disappearing completely, but just enough to fade into the background where Gokudera couldn’t bring himself to care about them any longer. All that was left was an earnest, friendly boy who, despite a year and a half of being blown off, still was drawn to Gokudera.

When Yamamoto tried to engage him in conversation again while the antagonist of the film was in the middle of explaining a critical plot point, Gokudera realized he had been duped. Not that Yamamoto had lied to him--he probably _was_ trying to give Tsuna and Kyoko some space--but movie night was most definitely the last thing on his mind at the moment.

Gokudera had the sudden urge to kick Yamamoto out, to tell him he was feeling nauseated, which wouldn’t have been a lie because sitting next to him atop his creaky mattress, where it would have been oh, so easy to push him down and stain the sheets with their sweat, was giving him vertigo. It was as if he was standing with his toes dangling off the edge of a precipice and one more gentle nudge from Yamamoto was all it would take to push him over into the infinite abyss.

In the end, it wasn’t Yamamoto who took the initiative.

“Do you really think anything between us would last?”

Yamamoto started, caught off guard by the sudden change in topic, but he had no delusions as to what Gokudera could be talking about. Under normal circumstances, he would feign ignorance, but now was not the time for that. Taking a moment to gather his thoughts, he caught Gokudera’s gaze and spoke.

“Yeah,” he said definitively. “I mean, we’d have to put some effort into it, but yes, I think we could make it work.” He tilted his head and grinned softly. “Is that what you’re worried about? ‘Cause I know I might have come on a little strong in the beginning, but I’m not looking for some fling.”

With a snort, Gokudera said, “Obviously. Three semesters is a little long to wait for a one night stand. Unless you’re just looking for friends with benefits...”

Yamamoto shook his head sharply. “No, of course not.” He lay a firm hand on Gokudera’s bare forearm. “I know you have trouble trusting people, and I know you’ve been hurt in the past.”

Gokuera flinched but, to his credit, didn’t pull away. Shit, this was dangerous; what was he thinking, letting himself get caught up in this? But there was an undeniable magnetism to Yamamoto, something that told him that maybe it was worth baring himself for this boy, sitting next to him on the bed and holding him down to earth with just the radiating heat of his hand. Gokudera had never felt so naked.

“I’ve never done this...” he admitted after a quiet length of time.

“That’s OK. We can figure it out together,” Yamamoto replied. And then he simply stared until Gokudera, blood roaring in his ears, leaned forward and mashed his lips against Yamamoto’s in a painful rush, and oh god he was fucking this up, how was he going to look Yamamoto in the eye after such a botched attempt at--

Yamamoto tilted his head and, sliding his arms around Gokudera’s shoulders, taught him how easily falling could be transformed into flying.

**and beyond**

In the heat of a late August afternoon, Gokudera stretched out in the grass of the quad with an array of colorful brochures scattered around him. The lingering, sweet scent of summer hung doggedly in the air as students in tank tops and sandals strolled past with a spring in their step that only could come from the freshness of a new semester. Beads of sweat gathered above Gokudera’s upper lip, and he bent to wipe his face on the shoulder of his t-shirt. Beside him, Yamamoto reached out for one of the pamphlets, holding it high above his head to block out the sun.

“UCLA.” Yamamoto whistled. “That’s pretty far.”

Gokudera nodded and rolled over on his side to face the boy—no, man, with the strength of his jaw, the depth of his timbre, and the width of his shoulders. But there was still a boyish vulnerability in his eyes.

“My first choice is actually Madison. Their program’s pretty good, and I’ve already met some of the professors I’d be working with,” Gokudera said, and then mumbling, “and it doesn’t hurt that it’s close enough for you and Tsuna to visit me on the weekends.”

It was really too hot to put up with Yamamoto’s clinginess, but Gokudera lay his forehead against Yamamoto’s chest with a sigh of reluctant contentment when he felt Yamamoto’s relieved smile press into his hair. The future could wait; for now, these were the moments to savor


End file.
